Reading Room Notes

I've been getting corseted up for a photoshoot of historic significance. The team behind Trowelblazers has a new project called ﻿"Raising Horizons"﻿ developed with photographer Leonora Saunders. They will be opening a photography exhibition early next year, featuring 14 women currently active in the fields of archaeology, geology and paleontology representing 14 historical counterparts. Team Trowelblazers very kindly asked me to take part, paired with Egyptologist and folklorist Margaret Murray. So at the beginning of this month I was sinched in, dressed head to toe in black (with white apron) and snapped!

For another Raising Horizons pairing (archaeologists Shahina Farid and Kathleen Kenyon) the Palestine Exploration Fund loaned a vintage camera as a prop for the photograph. The camera once belonged to the archaeologist John Garstang who used it at Jericho in the 1930s. In doing a bit of background research for a blogpost on the photoshoot, I started digging up information on John Garstang's wife, a rather elusive figure called Marie-Louise, whose archaeological work (unsurprisingly) has been significantly overshadowed. More on Marie-Louise in due course, but you can see a picture of her at Jericho in the PEF's Raising Horizons post.

The "Raising Horizons" team is now crowdfunding to support the exhibition and associated events planned - you can contribute to the project at their Indiegogo page and get some great perks for your contribution.